Day 59 - Planes

Today marked the first flight since Delhi where I have been on my own, as well as the first day my camera did not take a single picture. The former is due to Ben’s departure back to real life, the latter due to a piercing headache, courtesy of last night’s beers. As I was lucky enough to find a last-minute companion for the Burmese leg of my trip, I will not be on my own for very long.

The day was essentially spent getting to and from airplanes, as the actual flying time was not much longer than two hours. Luckily, my layover in Bangkok happened to be during the Malaysian Grand Prix, which ended up with an unlikely and brilliant victory for Max Verstappen that left me in a good mood. This made it two victories for the dutch wonderkid, both of which I watched between an airport bar and the plane, ultimately ignoring the flight attendant’s instructions to switch my phone off as I desperately sought to see the kid crossing the finish line. I also must have looked like a lunatic fist-pumping in the middle of a cafe as he made his move on Lewis Hamilton, since everyone else seemed absolutely oblivious about what was happening in the neighbouring country.

Vietnam and Cambodia were certainly nice, but not mind-blowing. While this could simply be the novelty of travelling wearing off (although I must say I am still not quite longing for the bright lights of Milton Keynes), these are also more standard travelling destinations, therefore taking some of the fascination away. Just to clarify (and I understand I have whined about tourists quite a bit recently), I have nothing against tourists - that would be outstandingly hypocritical of me, as I fit squarely into that category. What, in my opinion, has slightly spoiled these “backpacker destinations” is the way the tourism industries have adapted to certain strands of tourists - from those who buy fridge magnets at gift shops and just want to go from their air-conditioned hotel to their air-conditioned bus to their destination to the douchebag-backpacker type, that essentially want to go somewhere simply so they can go back to their job in a bank and tell all their friends about how amazing it was (irrespective of whether they actually enjoyed it or not). The constant harassment, proliferation of scam tourist agencies and abundance of selfie sticks everywhere you go are probably a price to pay for the democratisation of travel, without which I would probably not be able to write these lines. It is, however, a bit annoying to people who travel to discover new cultures, learn from their history and appreciate the beauty the World has to give - not simply to produce material to feed their social media addiction…

Cheers,
J-Wowww

P.S. -  I have finally managed to catch up with editing and uploading the missing pictures from Sri Lanka. To make up for this monochromatic post, you can go back to days 32 to 40 and check out the photos since there are a couple of decent ones (as I tried to explain, in vain, with my words, Sri Lanka is quite pretty!).